by John Orr
Coloradans elect John Hickenlooper
What fun it was watching the election season last year. Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper won the chance to deal with Colorado’s fiscal vise grip – TABOR, Amendment 23 and the Gallagher Amendment. The three constitutional amendments essentially tie the hands of the legislature and governor when they try to deal with funding allocation.
TABOR – the Taxpayer Bill of Rights – mandates that all tax increases be approved by the voters, which of course seldom happens. It also limits the growth in the distribution of revenues to a fixed percentage each year with the mandate that excess revenues be returned to taxpayers.
Amendment 23 earmarks a fixed percentage of revenues for K-12 education.
The Gallagher Amendment sets the ratio of property tax receipts so that businesses pay 55% of the total. So raising property taxes on homes (which is hard to do, see TABOR above) would disproportionately raise the business property tax rate as well.
Colorado’s treasury has never recovered from the downturn early in the century after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the dot-com bubble burst. It is this situation that Governor Hickenlooper faces as his biggest challenge and many feel that this is what drove one term governor Bill Ritter to choose family over leading the state.
The two-term Denver mayor is credited with setting the city on a sound fiscal course. The employee base in the city declined 7% during his tenure. Hickenlooper claims that the reduction came from efficiencies, better prioritization of services, and the application of technology and shared services. There was also a large exodus of baby boomers who had become eligible for retirement. Some voters see the new governor as a successful entrepreneur and hope that he will apply his business acumen to the state’s problems without kowtowing to environmentalists or liberal causes.
Well, as Maxwell Scott said the film Liberty Valance, “This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”
How about water issues?
Hickenlooper said in his first state of the state address that, “… the natural resource that may, in the end, have the greatest impact on Colorado’s economic growth, is water.” He has repeatedly claimed that the Front Range cities and the West Slope are joined at the hip. The state’s beauty and recreation opportunities is what attracts many to move here. While mayor, he pushed for dialogue between Denver Water and the folks in the Upper Colorado River basin to mitigate the effects of transmountain diversions.
He recently praised the report from the Interbasin Compact Committee (IBCC), released in December, that laid out the group’s ideas for sustainable water supplies for Colorado through 2050. According to The Pueblo Chieftain, Hickenlooper said of the report, “It’s not the total solution, but it’s within reach.”
Hickenlooper seems serious about water going forward. He nominated John Stulp, who had been leading the Colorado Department of Agriculture, as “special policy adviser on water.” In this role Stulp will also direct the efforts of the IBCC.
Of agriculture he said, “You hold highest and most sacred agriculture,” according to the Chieftain report.
He then added, “The bottom line is if Douglas County runs out of water or Aurora runs out of water and they suspend building permits for a year and that gets into Time or Newsweek, it affects the values of every person’s home in the state.”
The Governor also seems to understand the need for more storage. When pressed by proponents of the Northern Integrated Supply Project he told them that he is, “… inclined to support it,” according to The Greeley Tribune.
His state of the state address also included the passage, “We’ll take this ethic of collaboration and the search for common-ground to other issues besides water. Protecting our environment, keeping our air clean, conserving the natural beauty that defines Colorado – these are values we cherish and we won’t sacrifice them.”
Good luck Governor.
Mt. Emmons mine
Colorado’s role as a hard rock mining state started along Front Range creeks in the middle of the 19th century. It wasn’t long before prospectors opened claims along the entire Colorado Mineral Belt, which runs generally northeasterly from just north of Durango to the foothills near Boulder. Central Colorado encompasses much of the belt, and one can easily see the remains of old mining operations up and down many of the roads hereabout.
One result of mining activity is acid mine drainage contaminating surface water, which generally impacts the critters that call those streams home.
In January the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment ordered the operators of the Mt. Emmons Mine near Crested Butte, U.S. Energy Corp, to clean up discharges into Coal Creek. The town draws its drinking water from the stream.
Adding to the complexity of the situation is the claim by U.S. Energy that the high levels of various contaminants in the creek could simply be the result of runoff through the exposed rock and natural fractures in the watershed.
The High Country Citizens’ Alliance executive director Dan Morse summed up the issue at hand for The Crested Butte News, saying, “The question is, does all [the water building up in the mine] create artificial seeps and springs that allows polluted water to reach the surface? Are there fractures in the rock causing this water to get to the surface and ultimately pollute Coal Creek? The fact is, Coal Creek is contaminated with heavy metals … and the question remains, are they from this source?”
U.S. Energy Corp’s CEO Keith Larsen said, “I think what happened was that naturally occurring seepage from the mountain after the snowfall runoff picked up some metals,” according to the News.
The contamination issue didn’t sway the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board from rejecting High Country Citizens’ Alliance’s appeal of the permit to expand operations at the mine on January 12.
Meanwhile, just over the hill from Crested Butte in Pitkin County, biochar is being tested in reclamation of old mining operations.
I didn’t know what biochar was exactly but The High Country News reported, “Biochar is made by burning biomass (like wood, animal and crop waste) in an oxygen-limited environment, resulting in a stable form of carbon that has superior water- and nutrient-retention abilities.”
The project is on Castle Creek and is a collaboration between the Flux Farm Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service. They plan to stabilize the tailings and use the biochar to reduce metal toxicity while boosting soil fertility.
Short takes
• Speaking of Colorado government. The Water Quality Control Division is asking for more dough and boots on the ground. The Pueblo Chieftain reports that the agency is requesting the Joint Budget Committee to bump their funding $2 million for another 30 personnel. They enforce discharge permits and other water regulations.
John Orr covers Colorado water issues at Coyote Gulch (http://coyotegulch.net/)